Build Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset

It can take years for a company to build up a solid reputation – but it can be destroyed in seconds. How managers can safeguard the business brand and thwart potentially serious blows to the bottom line.

Many businesses strive to claim the top spots on those, coveted, annual “Most Admired Companies” lists. Others have to immediately grapple with the negative fallout of being spotlighted as “Worst Places to Work.”

From ethical lapses and environmental hazards to lapsed responses to customer and employee grievances; from leaked information, child labor violations, discrimination, even wrong-doings of high-placed individuals within the organization, a corporation’s reputation can be harmed seemingly overnight, with repercussions that can be felt for decades.

Dr. Daniel Diermeier writes in the June issue of Change This that “while reputational risks had risen significantly, reputation management capabilities have not kept up.” He offers business managers and leaders the keys to strong reputation management and reminds us that it is not a corporate function, but rather a capability. Here is his Manifesto on understanding the significance of the reputation and how to protect it intelligently.

Daniel Diermeier Ph.D. is the IBM Professor of Regulation and Competitive Practice and director of the Ford Motor Company Center for Global Citizenship at the Kellogg School of Management Northwestern University. He has served as an advisor to leading companies including Accenture, Cargill, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft McDonald’s and Shell.